steel cut oats at work? how??

OK. I love steel cut oats. I learnt from this website that they are much better than instant oatmeal. Now, if I do my morning workout, how can I cook them at work? we do have a kitchen but I don't know if it is a good idea to bring a pan and cook my oatmeal there in the morning. Can I cook it at home, bring it to work and just reheat it in the microwave?? I don't know.

It takes quite a while to cook them, so I don't suppose cooking them at work would be particularly convenient.  However, it tastes perfectly fine reheated.  My plan, especially with winter coming, is to make a large batch on the weekend and reheat single servings throughout the week for my breakfast.

Kittybig: Many thanks. That is a good idea but can you give me more info?? do  you mean I cook it on the weekend, put it in the fridge and get a reheat a small amount everyday. what about the calorie counting? how am I suppose to know if it is 1/4 cup or more?? I take 1/4 cup every morning and it is 150 calories so I count what I eat. 

You could do this one of two ways:

A) After you cook your individual size (1/4c precooked), measure how much it makes post-cooking (probably around 1/2 cup??).  Then when you're taking it out of the big batch, take out however much 1 serving cooked up to be.

B) Cook a predetermined (5*1/4cup?) amount and then divide it into 5 equal servings (like in different containers) when you're done.  Then it's grab&go in the AM!

For a situation like that, I would skip the steel cut oats and go for Old Fashioned rolled oats, which only take like 5 minutes to nuke, and can be easily done at work. Just measure out a half cup (150 calories) at home and put the dry oats in a Ziploc bag. Then put them in a bowl or tupperware, add water and nuke them in the office.

 

do you know that muscle milk has oats that are mixed with protein. Has anyone tried it? I think I might replace my steel cut with those ones.

I looked up the Muscle Milk and Oats but found the calorie count to be higher than I wanted.

A better solution for me was to either add a couple of egg whites to my oatmeal or a half scoop of protein powder.

lindawlek: it is 300 cals per serving. The serving is one cup. I have 1/4 cup of oatmeal and it is 150 calories. If you look at the label, you will find that it has 30 g of protein. That is why is high in cals. Don't excpect any high quality protein product to be low in cals. 1g of protein =5cals. so it is half protein ( almost) and half oats. very convenient for me at least:)

1 g of protein is actually 4 calories, just like 1 g of carbs is 4 calories.

I'm with you, Safina.  I LOVE steel-cut oats.  Here's my suggestion:  Make a quadruple batch (1 cup of uncooked oats), and make it on the thick side with a little less water.  Let it cool in the pan and put the pan in the fridge.  Once it's cold, slice the oatmeal into quarters.  Then you can package them, or scoop one quarter out each morning or whatever.  If you have a sticky pan, pour the cooked oats into a pie plate lined with plastic film, then chill.  Making more than 4 days worth is harder to dry out and may harden in a less-than-delicious way.

When you reheat, add a splash of water or milk (I keep a quart of skim in the work fridge).  When you stir them together, they'll loosen up and be good as new ;)

I had never heard of steel-cut oats before, but I love oatmeal - I am going to have to try these!

I was looking around on some other sites, and in a comment from DK to this article, they mention a cooking method that might work for you.

They put their steel-cut oats and other ingredients in a saucepan the night before, bring them to the boil then leave them to cool overnight. In the morning they are "ready to microwave". So if this works you could prep the night before, and take them to work in a some tupperware and nuke them.

Incidentally, the way I like to do oatmeal is with whole rolled oats, and I add the water the night before and leave them soaking overnight. Much quicker to cook, and much softer too.

 

Thanks doridee. I will try that. It is a good idea. it is like cutting a piece of cake lol the only concern is one piece might be bigger than the other. It depends on how much I am hungry:)

dm84: you are right. sorry, I meant 4 cals.:)

Davidkclark: thanks for posting this. Yes, you should give it a try. Steel cut oats are much better than instant oatmeal.

Steel-cut oats are good cooked in a crock pot, too.  I put them in the night before and have them ready in the morning.  You have to make a larger quantity that way, so I've always put the extra in individual portions in zip-lock bags in the fridge.  When I need a portion, I just nuke it.  It tends to stiffen a bit, so adding a little water helps.

oatmeal. .put in microwave at full power for about 2 minuets(enough to bring water and oats to a full boil) them a lower power(20% or 30%) for a further 3 min or however long it takes to finish cooking. the lower power is to keep from boiling over when you need a long cooking time. ( if you use a deeper bowl it might allow one full power cooking session ?).  skim milk powder (more protein)bran(fiber) and ground faxseed (omega oils) are all dry ingredients you could put in a container or ziplock bag with the oatmeal to cook at work.  only problem with cooking at work is it might tie up the microwave too long for others wanting to use it. Reheating would surely be shorter.